"Oh, come in here. Ooh!" cried Alexia, in muffled accents, as she huddled up
against the clothes.

"Oh, Polly!" It was Miss Rhys: her embroidery, cast aside at the sudden storm-
burst, was dragging behind her, and she was wringing her hands. "Did you ever
see anything so dreadful?"

"I don't believe there'll be another as bad," said Polly again, finding nothing
more of consolation to offer.

"And where is Alexia?" And without waiting for an answer, Miss Rhys paced
nervously up and down the room, still wringing her hands. "And of course there
will be more; there, there it comes," and she ran, the embroidery-piece still
hanging to her gown, into the closet.

"Oh, Aunt," cried Alexia, with a squeal, "you scared me 'most to death; I
thought I was struck!"

"Why, are you here, Alexia?" gasped Miss Rhys, when she could recover herself
enough to speak. "Well, this is truly a dreadful storm," and she clutched her
with shaking fingers.

"Yes, I am here," said Alexia. "Don't pinch so, Aunt--ow! My arm is all black
and blue, I know it is."

"It's no time to think of such little things, Alexia," replied her aunt
severely; "it may kill us both."

"Well, that's no reason I should be all pinched to death," grumbled Alexia,
forgetting the thunderstorm in her present discomfort and edging off as well as
she could. "The closet is dreadfully small, Aunt."

"It's quite large enough, I'm sure, to protect us," said Miss Rhys, hanging
tightly to her with trembling fingers. "Dear me! any minute may be our last."

"Well, I'm not going to be smothered to death," declared Alexia, struggling to
work her way past her aunt.

"I'm going after Polly." Alexia out in the middle of the room flung her arm
around Polly. "Oh, misery!--where?" as a vivid flash seemed to hop right in the
window. "Oh, Polly, come!" She clutched her wildly.

"Where?" said Polly. "We can't get away from it, Alexia; it's just everywhere."

"Oh, I don't care--anywhere--in the coal-scoop," cried Alexia, frantically
dragging her along. "I shall just die, Polly Pepper, and here you stand like a
stick."

"Well, there's just no use in running," said Polly, but seeing Alexia's distress
she suffered herself to be led, and downstairs the two girls sped, and into the
landlady's room, the first door to stand ajar.

"I'm coming in," announced Alexia, without ceremony, "for I'm scared to death,"
and she dragged Polly Pepper after her. "Did you ever see such a thunderstorm,
Mrs. Cummings?"

"It is pretty bad," a voice answered. It wasn't Mrs. Cummings, as she had
hurried to oversee the maid close the windows through the house, but another of
the boarders, who, like Alexia, had selected this apartment for a refuge.

"Oh, dear me!" Alexia sank down upon the sofa, being careful not to relinquish
her hold of Polly, and dragged a cushion over her face. "Is that you, Mr.
Filbert"--bringing out one eye to stare at him.

"I think so," said Mr. Filbert, a little thin old man sitting over in the corner
and leaning forward over his cane. He spoke cautiously, as if not quite sure.
"Yes, it is a bad storm," he repeated decidedly. "Where is your aunt?"

"She's up in the closet," said Alexia, pulling the sofa-cushion over her own and
Polly's face as well. "There, we can't see it at any rate, if we are going to be
killed."

"Is your aunt in the closet, did you say?" Mr. Filbert kept on, with the
impression that a reply would soon be coming if he only held up the conversation
at his end of it.

Alexia dashed down the sofa-cushion with a nervous hand. "I can't breathe; let's
get out, Polly," and she flew up, to sit quite straight. "Yes, my aunt is up in
the closet, Mr. Filbert. Whee! Oh, I am so scared, Polly Pepper!"

"She'll be struck there quicker 'n any other place she could pick out," declared
the little old gentleman positively.

Alexia dashed off, ran through the hall and up to her own room. "Aunt, Aunt,"
she cried, thrusting her head into the closet, "you'll be struck in there, Mr.
Filbert says so. Come out, Aunt."

There was no response, and Alexia, now in mortal terror, plunged into the
closet.

"Come, Aunt. Oh, my!" as a clap of thunder sent her plunging in headlong. "Why,
where--" for grope as she might, clear up to the end, among the clothes and the
shoe-bag, no Miss Rhys was to be found.

"Oh, dear, dear!" Alexia began to whimper, feeling all around the floor with
terror-stricken fingers. "Aunt, where are you? Oh, she's been struck and she's
dead, I know she is! Polly Pepper," she screamed, tumbling out of the closet to
rush to the head of the stairs, "come up and help me find Aunt."

"Alexia!" Miss Rhys, concluding not to be left alone in the closet when the two
girls ran downstairs, had hurried out after them, and now appeared from the hall
corner where she had crouched. "Don't scream so."

"Oh, Aunt!" cried Alexia, throwing her arms around her, "you haven't been
struck, have you? Oh, do say you haven't."

"Why, of course not; don't you see I'm here?" said Miss Rhys. "There, child,
take care, you're mussing my lace collar," and she edged off from the nervous
fingers. "We'll go downstairs, I think, and stay with Mrs. Cummings."

"If you're really sure you are not struck," said Alexia, eying her askance, as
if in considerable doubt, "we'll go; and Polly Pepper is there and that tiresome
old Mr. Filbert."

"If Polly is there, she must stay to luncheon," said Miss Rhys, gathering up her
skirts and preparing to descend the stairs.

"Oh, how fine!" exclaimed Alexia, hopping after, losing sight of the
thunderstorm in the delight of having Polly Pepper to herself for so many hours.
"Oh, Aunt, what's that tagging after you?"--catching sight of the piece of
embroidery dangling from her aunt's long figure.

"I see nothing," said Miss Rhys, turning around with her head over her shoulder.

"Well, he's so tiresome," said Alexia, putting her arm around her and gazing out
of the window; "that's just the way he goes on at the table every single day.
Oh, see it rain, Polly Pepper!"

"It's slackening," said Polly, peering up at the drops, that really were
beginning to fall with little spaces between. "And Mamsie will send for me soon,
I guess."

"Oh, well, it will begin again most likely," said Alexia. "I hope this
thunderstorm will last till ever so late this afternoon."

"Oh, Alexia Rhys!" cried Polly, in great distress, and whirling away from the
window, "don't wish that. Why, I must get home."

"Well, I do," said Alexia, bobbing her light hair till the fluffs settled over
her forehead, "for then you'd stay. You haven't been over here in ever and ever
so long, Polly Pepper," she said, in an injured voice, "and I've got so very
much to talk with you about."

"Well, let's talk now, then," said Polly, with a sigh, yet feeling quite sure
that she would soon be sent for to go home.

"Come over to the sofa then," said Alexia, So they ran over, and together
settled as far back into the corner as they could, pushing up one of the
cushions comfortably behind them.

"Why, Alexia Rhys!" Polly poked up her head where she had been nestling it on
Alexia's shoulder. "You know Mrs. Sterling sent for the shawl and gave five
dollars for it."

"Oh, that was because she knew it was so ugly that no one else would buy it,"
said Alexia composedly. "Well, I don't care, so long as it's sold. I was just
tired to death of that old thing, Polly; I don't want to ever see another
shawl."

"Well, we shan't have another fair in a long while, I suppose," said Polly, with
a sigh, and laying her head down again.

"Not till next summer," said Alexia; "then, says I, for a garden party! You know
your grandpapa said he'd give you another, just as nice a one, then."

"But that's a whole year." said Polly disconsolately; "heigh-ho, it's so very
long to wait! Well, I suppose we must think of something else to do now."

"Well, it would do them good to be left out sometimes," declared Alexia:
"they're so high and mighty, I'd just dearly love to take them down, and say,
'Boys, you can't come into this.'" She tossed her fluffy hair till the long,
light braids flew out triumphantly.

"Why can't we have a cooking club?" suggested Polly, after a minute of hard
thinking.

"Ugh!" Alexia twisted up her face. "Oh, that's horrid," she said, with another
grimace. "Do you mean, learn to make things on the kitchen range?"

"Yes, and on the chafing-dish," said Polly, flying up to sit straight. "Oh, it
would be elegant, Alexia!" she cried, with glowing cheeks.

"Well, I can't learn," said Alexia, "so that's some small comfort, for I'm in a
boarding-house, and I guess the cook here would fly in a fit to see me come into
the kitchen."

"But you can come to our house and learn with me," said Polly, clasping her
hands, "and we'll make perfectly splendid things; just think, Alexia."

"Oh, little biscuits," said Polly, going back in her mind to the delights of
baking-day in the little brown house; "cunning little ones, you know; you can't
think how perfectly elegant we used to make them, Alexia."

"Oh, you had everything elegant in your little brown house," said Alexia,
twisting enviously in her corner. "Joel's never tired of telling of it. And to
think I wasn't there! Oh, dear me! I wish you would talk about it."

"Well, you can try now to make some biscuits. I'll show you how," said Polly
eagerly.

"And Polly--oh, goody!--now don't you see we won't have to ask the boys to join
this? A cooking club--the very idea!" Alexia hopped off from the sofa, and stood
in front of Polly, clasping her hands.

"Why, yes we will," cried Polly, hopping off too, and speaking very decidedly;
"the boys will like it just as much as we do."

"And beside, even if they don't make things, why, they can come to our suppers,
for we must of course get up some, of things we've learned to make. Oh, it will
be such fun, Alexia!" Polly sighed and clasped her hands.

"And I'll learn to make your cunning little biscuits," declared Alexia suddenly,
quite as if she had proposed the plan and pushed it along from the very
beginning, "and do let's have a club supper soon," she begged.

"There's a carriage coming," announced little Mr. Filbert, from his chair in the
corner.

"Oh, it's for me, I know," cried Polly, springing to the window. "Yes, Mamsie
has sent for me, Alexia. I knew she would!"

Polly burst out into a laugh. "Just look there," She pointed to the patches of
light in the sky gradually growing bigger and brighter. "It doesn't rain a
single drop! And, oh, Alexia, look, look--the rainbow!"